


Overwatch

by Kenabee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, i have no idea really where this came from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:42:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27442852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenabee/pseuds/Kenabee
Summary: When Lydia Martin’s boyfriend takes her to a shooting range, she doesn’t think it’ll amount to much. She doesn’t expect the power, the sudden burst of freedom when she pulls the trigger. She doesn’t expect anything that follows really, but mostly, she doesn’t expect Stiles Stilinski.
Relationships: Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	Overwatch

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this AGES ago and found it in my phone notes and was like “huh this is fucking weird but not the worst thing I’ve ever written.” And so I’m posting it with the hope that maybe someday I’ll take it and turn it into a real book. 
> 
> I took teen wolf and maybe them assassins and spies ??? Idk but enjoy!!

26

She has twelve hours in Budapest, before she needs to be in the flight back to Langley. They don’t usually give her such a long layover, but she figures it’s their attempt at an apology. Go figure they would try to apologise with that, instead of just not sending her on these missions anymore. 

It’s been six months since she requested a leave, an analyst position, anything else really. Not even permanently, just for a month or two to take a break. Of course there’s no break for her, or for Scott. Nope, they’re supposed to just get over it, and keep on working. She’d be upset, disgusted even, if she hadn’t been prepared for that exact thing. Maybe Stiles was right, maybe leaving is the only option. 

She shakes her head to rid it of those thoughts. She can’t think about Stiles right now, not when she has twelve hours in Budapest and an unlimited shopping budget. She leaves the hotel quickly, sending her bag to the airport and turning for the boutiques she saw the last time she was there. She was on an in-n-out, less than two hours after the job to get on the plane, so she and Stiles never made it to the vintage shopping street. But she’s there now, and she’s pretending it doesn’t hurt that he’s not with her. 

She’s also pretending the eyes on her don’t make her skin crawl. She’s aware her pale skin and normally bright red hair do nothing to disguise her, but neither does the dyed blonde. It makes her eyes pop more, makes her just a little less noticeable but a little more alluring. She wishes they could’ve dyed it dark for this one, but the target liked blondes so a blonde she became. 

Turned out to be unnecessary, she was able to take the target out without meeting her once. The dumbass who left her curtains and window wide open. Easy shot. 

Still, they dyed her hair and now people are staring. So, she buys a head scarf. They’re popular this time of spring, and the dark green and pink blends easily into the crowd, obscuring most of her hair and shading her face. As she walks along, the eyes stop following eventually. 

She wishes she was a chameleon, like Kira, could blend into any place without a fuss, without a second look. She thinks she probably wouldn’t have been brought in at all if she didn’t look the way she does. 

(It’s not true, she was brought in because she made a kill shot from 1,200 meters away on her first try, nearly broke the world record at a shooting range once. Stiles was the one who found her, who accidentally brought her in. She thinks he’s felt guilty of that his entire life, but she forgave him a long time ago.)

Still, she has her skills, and it’s easy enough to make her look less shocking. She slumps a bit, walks a little slower, tries to blend just enough to stop all the stares. After a while she stops feeling the eyes on her, starts feeling that comfortable shroud of obscurity. She knows her back is still being watched, but at least it’s by Overwatch and not strangers on the street. 

So, of course as soon as she starts relaxing she gets dragged into a corner between two racks, hidden from the rest of the world. She moves quickly, aiming her elbow back for something, hits bone with a grunt from both of them, flips her self around so she can face her attacker. She’s about to go for a jugular punch when she recognises the black hair. Quickly, she snaps her hands back and close to herself, hunkering down so any cameras or people can see her even less. 

“Stiles.” She breathes, and he smiles at her tightly. He looks good, tired but good. His hair is longer, he’s grown a beard and pulls it off really well. Her heart skips a beat when she recognises the chain around his neck, and before she knows it she’s reaching out for it. Her fingers brush his throat, makes both their breaths catch. She pulls the chain out and sees the little pendent, a small baseball bat, a joke about their second mission together. She smiles at the memory and pushes forward, into his arms. 

They sit on the floor of the shop like that, holding each other, her legs around his waist, his arms on her back and in her hair. She wants to cry, even though the last time she cried was when they took her away from her life ten years ago. Stiles feels steady, strong as ever in her arms and she hates that she needs to let go, to back away. 

“I have eight hours left, and a check-in at two.” She whispers to him, and he nods. He still hasn’t said anything, not even now, and she desperately wants to hear his voice. “Stiles...” she starts, but doesn’t know how to finish, doesn’t know what else to say to him. 

“I love you.” He whispers into her hair, and she would have missed it if she weren’t so desperate to hear it. She clutches him tighter, tries to pull him into her more, but he pulls away. She tries to look at him, but he pushes her eyelids shut, kisses her forehead. When she opens them a second later, he’s already gone. 

She knows better than to look for him, knows it would put Overwatch on his trail. Instead, she grabs a sweater from the racks around them and pulls it up to the register. She’ll give it to Malia, find a way to explain what happened. She’s not Alison, but she’s the only one calm enough to understand the importance. If she told Scott he’d try to come here, try to find him, wouldn’t realise that’s exactly what the agency wants. 

She might only get a few moments like these, on the jobs Stiles can get information on, but they’re enough for now. Until she can find a way to leave, to get them all out. 

~~~

15

The first time she meets Stiles Stilinski, she’s at the shooting range. She recently took a class with Jackson, who thought a girl with a gun was hot. She didn’t care enough to say no, and when she felt the power of the gun in her hand, she forgot all about looking pretty for Jackson. 

After, they fucked in the back of his car while he whispered about how hot she was. She came remembering the power, the push back after a shot, the way it felt to see her mark on the target. 

She was back a week later, alone, for one of their classes. The high tech range becomes an addiction, being able to use the screens to see exactly where on the target she’s hit makes her brain sing, makes her run equations and corrections. Thursdays after school became shooting days, and then it was Thursday and Friday, until she accidentally found herself there every weekend, shucking parties and Jackson like excess baggage. 

That’s where she met him, the boy behind the counter. He had dark hair, shaved close to his head in a way that shouldn’t have been cute, but was. He never spoke too much to her, seemed nervous, possibly wary, but when she signed up for the advance class three months in, he was there. 

She thought he was just a student employee, someone with a weekend job, but it turns out he practically lives at the range and he’s just one of the instructors. 

She’s taking a precision class, trying to understand why the velocity of different guns makes so much difference with the wind. She has her notebook out as he talks, is taking down data point after data point, plugging them into equations and creating some of her own. She needs to understand, has to quantify the power and the velocity and the wind and the distance until she knows exactly how to make any shot. 

It’s not until he’s standing over her that she realises the rest of the class has filed into their partitions, are in position waiting for him to start again. She blushes, but doesn’t apologise, just passes him with her notebook in hand to her station. She picks up the Ruger .22 and waits for the call. 

It comes a moment later, and in her mind she sees the exact equation, when to pull the trigger, where to hold her fingers to keep steady, how the wind will effect it. When she fires three in a row, she’s not surprised that they’re a few millimetres apart and off center. She’s aiming for the heart, but gets a little too high. Enough that it the screen in he partition calls it a kill shot, but not enough for her to be satisfied. 

She’s comparing the sensation with her notes when he comes back. His sharp intake of breath is what makes her look up, makes her notice his attention is on her notebook and not her target. She raises an eyebrow at him, is ready to rebuke any asshole comments he makes, but he says nothing about it. Instead he turns to her target, eyes it for a moment before turning away. 

She shrugs it off, pretends like it doesn’t matter, and goes back to her equations and practice. By the end of the day she’s added two things, inconsistencies in the gun, and her breathing patterns. Her last three rounds make dead center, four in the heart and three in the head. 

She feels proud, more proud than she does after a math test or when she got top 10% in the SAT sophomore year. That feeling becomes a little bit of an addiction, and pretty soon she’s paying almost $400 for an unlimited use. She doesn’t come every day, but she spends her weekends there after she finishes her homework. 

The boy is there every other Saturday, never speaks except for polite reminders of saftey, and the occasional “welcome back” when it’s been two days in a row. Another six months pass before she realises she doesn’t know his name. 

~~~

18

They Airbnb this time, posing as big group of post grads traveling together. They’ve been using that one for weeks, as they follow the money chain of a terror organisation based in Laos. 

This one is smaller, only three bedrooms, so they’ve bunked up. She usually shares with Alison, but she and Scott are together again, so they shared instead. Which left Kira and Malia together, and her alone. Well, alone until now. 

They picked Stiles up in Shanghai, where he had to let an attack happen in order to get pulled out. Thirty people died, and as soon as they made it to Bangkok, he disappeared into the room. 

He’s lying in the bed facing the wall when she enters. Gingerly she puts her riffle case down by the closet and takes her coat off. Underneath is her black leggings and T-shirt, practical and comfortable for missions, and soft. Slowly, she crawls into the bed behind him. He doesn’t react, so she puts an arm around him, light enough that if he shrugged it would fall right off. Instead, he turns around and pulls her into his chest. Her face rests against his neck, and she breathes softly, tries to ignore the way it makes him shiver. She grabs his shirt in her hands and lets herself relax, let’s him cry into her hair. 

She wakes up to the ringing of a phone. It’s not hers, and Stiles sits up and reaches for it blindly. 

“Hello.” He says gruffly, and his eyes turn distant. “Yes, sir, they believe I died in the attack... no sir, all photo evidence was taken care if before I left for Laos. Yes sir, I’ll be in the first morning flight. Thank you, sir.” He hangs up. 

“You’re leaving?” Lydia asks, hating how small her voice sounds. 

“I have to go stateside until this is over. I can’t be seen again.” He says with a sigh, then lies back down next to her. 

She curls herself into him, won’t let herself feel self-conscious about his arms wrapping around her waist again, and she sighs into his chest. He kisses the top of her head, and she wants to scream. She just got him back and now she has to send him away until this is over. It’s he first time she realises what this is, why she cares so much. 

She’s falling in love with him.

~~~

16

For her 16th birthday she wants to try something new. It’s the sniping class that interests her, they have it once a month and this one happens to fall the day after her birthday. She has to have a party, isn’t quiet unpopular enough (yet) that it’s unexpected of her. In fact, her disappearing act may have made people more interested in her life. 

She hands out twelve invitations, which means they’ll each bring at least twelve people, who will bring people, so she‘s glad they still have her grandmother’s lake house. Her mother is more involved in this than anything else in her life, buying decorations and kegs like it’s her job. She’s been home more the last two weeks than she has in the last two years combined, it’s overwhelming. 

Still, she has a good time. Her mom wished her happy birthday and gave her a new credit card, and then left for another trip. She doesn’t drink at her party, but she gets to watch Jackson get plastered and pass out, and half the lacrosse team draws on his face. 

She ends up at the boat house, looking at pictures of her grandmother and all the places she travelled. She worked for an old newspaper as a travel photographer, has all these photos of the world up. Lydia loved looking at them as a little girl, listening to the crazy stories her grandmother would make up.

They loved playing spies, when her mom would disappear for a few weeks and her grandma would take her to the lake house. They would run around the house, hiding and making up games. Her favourite was always the laser game. She would sit on top of the stairs and try to hit her grandma with the little laser as she snuck across the living room. Whenever she got her, her grandma would do a dramatic fall, and she got to run away and hide. 

Looking at the pictures, she feels tears prick her eyes. She shakes her head and quickly looks away, out towards the water. Taking a deep breath, she leaves the boat house, locks the door behind her and walks back to the house. 

People are finally leaving, filing out and going home. The house is about half empty now (Jackson’s still passed out) when she sees him. He’s coming down the stairs (probably from the less crowded bathroom) wearing a grey T-shirt and jeans. He looks good, in a way he doesn’t at the shooting range. More relaxed, like he feels comfortable in the crowd. He looks up and they make eye contact briefly, before he turns away and around the corner. She wants to follow him, wants to know what he’s doing here, at her party, when she’s never seen him outside the range. 

But she doesn’t, because she’s not desperate (and she’s a little bit of a coward), and would rather start kicking people out. So she does, starting in the back room and shouting “cops” near enough some nervous looking people. Immediately they start rushing to the front, shouting cops throughout. All in all, it takes about 15 minutes before people are rushing out of every room. Another twenty and there’s only a few stragglers left, people Lydia actually knows, who know her tricks. 

Madeline smirks from her spot on the kitchen counter, before downing the rest of her water bottle. She stands and wakes Jackson, pulls him up enough to drag him to her car. She’s on the road a minute later, while Lydia breaks up the remaining couples and sends them on their way. The last one are a pair of seniors, and they take some convincing but eventually they leave, still kissing each other, until Lydia slams the door on them. She turns around and sighs. The place is a mess, cups everywhere and couch stained. It doesn’t matter, her mother hired a cleaning service, they’ll be there in the morning. 

She gingerly walks around the messes, to the stairs. She’s about to enter her grandmothers room when she hears the tap turn on. Squaring her shoulders in annoyance, she walks over and gets ready to bang on the door, but before she can it flies open. 

The boy from the shooting range blinks at her in surprise. He looks around the corner and seems confused. 

“Party’s over, get out.” She says, her voice sounds more exhausted than it has in a long time. The boy looks at her for a moment before nodding and turning towards the stairs. Before he goes down though, he turns back to her. 

“See you tomorrow?” He asks with a smirk and she rolls her eyes at him. His smirk grows but he takes the silence. She waits for the tell tale sound of the door closing before looking over the bannister. He’s walking down the path, so she turns around and goes back to her grandmothers old room. Unlocking it, and then locking it again behind her, she collapses on the bed without even undressing. 

She’s up at 8:30. The class starts at 10:15 sharp, which gives her just enough time to get dressed and make it there twenty minutes early. 

The range itself is an hour out of town, down backroads and through the woods. Green is slowly become her favourite colour just because of the drive. It’s getting warmer now, spring has been fading in all through March, so the flowers are out. Baby blues and pinks spread throughout the trees. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. 

When she gets to the range (9:55) there’s already half a parking lot full of trucks. The men wear bulky jackets and all sling their own guns and equipment across their backs. Lydia is not a self conscious person, but the looks she gets from each of them makes her skin crawl. She pulls her puffy jackets closer around her, tries to ignore the way they’re checking her out. 

She makes it inside the building without anyone speaking to her, but it doesn’t last long. In the middle of checking out her preferred gloves and looking for a scope, one of the men from outside comes up next to her. 

“Need help, little girl?” He asks. She doesn’t turn to face him, but she can feel the sneer on his face, the way he must feel so superior to her. 

“No.” She says, before grabbing a Nightforce Optics 5.5. It’s one of the better ones on the shelf, and she turns quickly away from the man. A few more try to do that, offer to “help.” One even offers to hold her riffle for her, which makes her cackle. She loads it in font of him and stalks away. 

She ends up first to load into the truck, gets in the first seat. Someone else sits next to her, and she’s about to pull her headphones out of her pocket, when she realises it’s the boy. He smiles at her but stays quiet, even as the other men jump in and grumble at each other. She ends up putting her headphones in when they start tying to speak to her. 

It takes 45 minutes to get there, and when they do she and the boy are the first ones off. She follows him down the path, and sets up next to him. She half expected him to be the instructor, but an older man with a beard is the one shouting instructions. 

“My name is Chris. You have three targets. The first, 600 meters, the second at 900, and the third at 1,200. You have all day to practice. Raise your hand for assistance.” He says, and then walks to the other side of the boy and sits next to him. He gives a subtle nod, and the boy grunts. “Begin whenever.” He says, and Lydia has to stop from rolling her eyes. Some class instructor he is. 

Still, she doesn’t ask. She knows how to load and shoot a riffle, has practiced with smaller ranges before. It can’t be that different to shoot it. So she sets up, the way she researched. She breathes evenly and slows her mind, before putting her eye to the scope. 

She finds her first target, and the shot is easy. She’s probably off by few millimetres the first time, so she perfects that before moving further back. By the time she finishes her second target, she’s so in the zone she almost doesn’t notice when Chris starts talking again. He’s not quite yelling, but he’s not quiet either. It pulls her out of her zone, until she catches the end of his sentence. 

“Get out. Go back to the truck.” He’s telling one of the men, and she notes his scope has a crack through it. “Back to business, everyone else.” Chris says, so she turns back to her last target. 

1,200 meters is a lot further than the other targets, and it means the winds have a stronger effect. She’d looked up the report earlier in the day, but it’s still mostly guess work. She hits dead center on her first try, but then the shoulder on her next three, before she adjusts enough. Her fourth try dings the edge of the heart, but its not close enough. So she keeps going.

Another seven shots and she has two forehead and three dead centre of the heart. It’s her proudest work yet, and when the screen lights up with its silly “high score” she allows herself to feel some pride. 

“Interesting.” She hears, and turns her head to see Chris has crouched down near her. He smiles at her and she lets herself put the gun down and give him her attention. “How long have you been doing this for?” 

“Seven months.” She answers, and he hums again before standing up. She turns back to her panel, clears her “high score” notification, and begins a new analysis in her notebook. 

She doesn’t notice the panicked look in the boy’s eyes, the way his eyes flick between her and Chris. 

They’re on the way back when he speaks up, the first time he speaks to her outside of polite talks and rentals (and the night before). She never really noticed his voice before, but it’s deep and soft, oddly gentle. 

“You have to stop coming here.” He whispers to her in the back of the truck. She turns to him with a raised eyebrow, and he blushes and looks away.

“And why is that?” She asks. 

“It’s not safe and you need to find somewhere else. Anywhere else.” He says it with this desperate undertone, as if he’s scared and worried. 

“It’s not safe?” She asks in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

“Please just trust me, don’t come back. Find another range.” He says, and then turns away from her. She scoffs at his back but turns away as well. 

When they get back, he’s out of the truck and walking away before she even stands. She’s putting her pieces away when Chris walks up to her again. He stands a respectable distance away, so she’s not too worried, but he is smiling in that soft way that me do when they want something. 

“Can I help you?” She asks, crossing her arms and popping her hip. 

“We have an advanced training class.” He says, and she quirks an eyebrow. “I think you should sign up.”

“Advanced training, what does that mean?” 

“Technically, it’s a tactical training class. It’s on weekend afternoons. You’d learn to use a variety of weapons, and be able to practice on more... advanced targets.” He says it all with a smile, but she sees what he’s avoiding saying. It’s a training class with others, fighting with others, which makes it a competition. With guns. Lydia loves both of those things.

“You got forms?” She asks. “I want to read all of them.” He chuckles but brings them out to her. The boy is shaking his head at her from behind the counter, but she ignores him. 

She signs up for the class a week later. It changes her life. 

~~~

19

She’s nineteen when Stiles first tells her he loves her. It’s after their first mission alone together, without oversight watching their every move. They’re in Budapest, staying at a dingy hotel posing as American tourists. It’s a good cover for them, since neither have been before. They have less than two hours to get to the airport, and yet neither of them are moving. 

She watched Stiles kill a woman with his bare hands, saw through her scope the wrecked look on his face afterwards. When they rendezvoused at the hotel, she’d taken him into her arms and lied down without thinking about it. They’re still there, his head on her chest and her hands running through his hair. She whispers nonsense to him, about a vintage shopping street she found, about the House of Terror museum he would love. She rambles on about architecture and landscaping, until his sobs quiet and his body stills in her arms. 

“I love you.” He whispers to her throat, and she shivers with the sensation of it. She wants to say it back, wants to tell him she loves him, but she knows it’s not what he wants. He doesn’t tell her so she’ll say it back, he tells her so she knows. She holds him tighter instead, lets a leg wrap around his waist until she’s almost wrapped all the way around him. 

The make it to the airport just in time, they get a hostile glare from one overwatch and a knowing smirk from another. Everyone thinks they’re sleeping together, they make jokes and snide remarks about it constantly, even though it’s technically against the rules. 

When they get back to base camp, Chris doesn’t yell like she expects him to. Instead he claps them both on the shoulder and sends them on their way. 

They walk to the barracks together, are supposed to leave for their separated halls and rooms, but Lydia follows Stiles to his. She loves his room, it has more personality than any other. Probably because he’s been here the longest, besides Alison of course. 

He has posters, one of a band she’d heard of but never listened to before him, and one of an old 80s band. On the other wall, there’s a large cork board. During missions it has strings and photos pasted everywhere, a way for him to prepare for all the possibilities. His own neuroses and anxieties on display. 

She marches across to it now, yanks each of the photos and pieces of string away before he can react. She takes them out of the room, to a trash can down the hall, so he can’t be tempted to pull them out and look. She knows him too well, she sometimes thinks. 

When she gets back, he’s already curled on the bed. She takes her place behind him, wraps herself around him again. They fall sleep like that, even though it’ll mean more jabs and extra laps during training. 

~~~

20

The second time is an accident. She knows it’s an accident because an overwatcher is there, but he’s ecstatic, doesn’t even seem to realise he’s said it. 

She’s just made an impossible shot, almost 2,600 meters away. It’s a practice target, but it’s a clean kill shot, and it’s the best shot any sniper on the base has made, ever. Stiles is jumping up and down with Scott, screaming at her as the distance pops up on her screen with her score. Malia is staring, open mouthed. 

“Holy shit I love you.” Stiles says in this awed voice that make her heart skip a beat. The overwatcher’s eyes narrow for a moment, but seems to let it go, so she doesn’t worry about it too much. She’s grinning ear to ear, can feel her heart in her chest racing. This is worth a promotion, worth being able to go on her own missions, or maybe get a trip somewhere with an extra hour to herself. 

She’s so high on cloud nine, she doesn’t even see the crash coming. Chris walks into her room with a smile, Alison behind him. They’re best friends at this point, falling into friendship like it was meant to be.

He congratulates her, praises her ability and brings a yellow star to the door. It’s small, barely the size of a finger nail, but it glimmers against her door. She smirks at it, then him. He rolls his eyes, but it’s fond. 

“I’m sending you and Alison out.” He says, and she has to reel in a squeal at the idea. “It’s a low risk, so you’ll be going alone just a simple stakeout in London. Your cover is in here.” He says, handing her the folder. 

She and Alison pour over the information, find they’re watching (only watching) a senator who might be doing backwater deals with arms dealers. As cases go, it’s boring, but they’ll be alone together, away from overwatch and with a full two hours before the senator even arrives in London, giving them plenty of time to play tourist. 

It goes like this: they arrive and head straight to the National Gallery, then the Eye, then Big Ben, and all the main tourist spots, until they’ve properly explored and staked out the main areas. They check in to their hotel, a room with a view of the senator’s across the river. 

It’s an easy stakeout, he arrives, he drinks, he meets with a man Alison recognises as a German arms dealer, and he sleeps. The next day he meets with the same dealer, and then his wife arrives. The wife is in on it, which is unlike most of their cases, so that’s interesting, but nothing else happens. His three day trip ends with a meeting at parliament, which Overwatch has its own cover for. They play tourist for three more hours, before getting on the plane home. 

She doesn’t immediately recognise the difference, the quiet when they get in. Usually one of the boys would greet them, then they’d go get food, but sometimes it doesn’t happen and they get busy. It takes her an hour to realise what feels wrong. Stiles hasn’t come to see her, and they always come to see each other after a mission. She runs out of her room, towards his, but before she’s even down the hall, she sees it. 

Officers are pulling the desk out of Stiles’s room, and he’s nowhere to be found. She slows her walk, until it’s almost casual. She stops and leans against the opposite wall, watches them pull things out. They’re stacking loose items on a cart, and before she can talk herself out of it, she grabs the spool of red string. It slips in her pocket without a sound, and nobody seems to notice. Next is the necklace, the baseball bat pendant she gave him a few years ago. One of the officers sees, but pointedly looks away. Quickly she moves again, walking past Isaac’s room straight to Scott’s. 

“Where is he?” She demands as soon as he closes the door behind her. 

“I don’t know. Chris took him out, said he had a special mission, and now he’s gone.” Scott says, and she notices how stressed he looks. Scott specialises in mediation and hand to hand combat, but he’s the most nervous person she’s ever met. 

“Breathe.” She commands, and he takes in a deep breath. “I’ll ask, Chris likes me more than you.” It makes Scott laugh, for a second. 

“He won’t answer, I already tried.” He says, which makes her laugh. 

“Have you met me?” She says, and he rolls his eyes. She leaves before he can say anything else, closing the door softly behind her. She makes her way to the main cabin, where Chris is undoubtedly going over the information they brought back. 

She knocks briskly and hears a “come in.” She walks in and sits where he points to, one of the overlarge leather chairs in front of his desk. He looks up after a moment, and the smile that almost shows, falls off immediately. 

“This is about Stiles.” It’s not a question, but she nods anyways. “I had hoped this wouldn’t become a problem, but evidently it has.” He pinches his nose and looks up, then back down to her. “Stiles is undercover, he and I have been working on the case for a few weeks. If all goes well, he’ll be back in three months to a year.”

“A year!” She shouts before she can stop herself. Her chair rattles with the force of it, and she has to take a deep breath to calm herself. Chris’s eyebrow is raised, and even though she knows Chris would never do anything to harm them, not more than the missions have to, she also knows he has his own superiors. “Sorry, sir.” 

“I understand you and Stiles are close friends, Lydia. It does not mean you are exempt form the rules. You knew what signing on meant, you know how this works. I’m sorry, but there’s no more information I can give you. You are excused.” He says it firmly, pats her hand that rests on the desk, but slides a piece of paper under her palms as he does so. She pretends to clench her fists and storm out. 

Back in her room, she turns the lights off before pulling the covers over herself. Slowly, she unfolds the paper, tries to keep as quiet as possible as she reads the words. 

West Africa. The note says, which isn’t much, but it is enough. 

A week later, terrorism is brought up by Alison. It’s enough of an excuse to start her own research. She’d thank Chris if there was a way, but he already knows what this means to her. 

~~~

16

Her mom sends her a letter a month after her birthday. They’re offering a permanent position there in France, she wants to know if Lydia wants to move with her or stay. Lydia stays because even though she speaks French she doesn’t know how to speak to her mom. 

She’s been in advanced training for three weeks then, doesn’t want to leave it. She gets a rush every time she beats someone in shooting, especially long distance, and loves the thrill of throwing knives. There’s something about the danger of it all that gets her blood pumping. 

Going to school starts to feel like a chore for the first time ever. In class, she daydreams about the new guns they get in that week, or a special knife she saw one of the other students practicing with. It’s not until she meets Alison, Chris’s daughter, that she realises she could just not go. 

Alison shows up on her fifth weekend of classes, for an archery training. Lydia’s never even touched a bow before, so it’s all unfamiliar to her what the others are talking about. She hasn’t made many friends, the gun range boy is the only one she sort of knew before, and he either avoids her or glares at her. So Alison and her bubbling personality is a little refreshing. 

The others have clearly done this before, they each pick a bow with ease and specific arrows. For all the research she’s done, Lydia still has no idea what bow she wants. Alison does, helps her pick a lightweight one and some thinner arrows. She shows her how to hold the bow properly and helps her learn to aim. 

She doesn’t take to it like she does a gun, but the thrill of it is there, simmering under the surface a little. On her fifth try she makes it close enough the bullseye that Alison wanders off to help others. She comes back with pointers every few minutes, and it’s nice. Lydia’s been a natural at everything else, it almost feels good to be taught something, to have to learn. By the end of the day she manages to hit the bullseye three times in a row, the way some of the others have been doing all day. 

After that, Alison starts coming to classes. Lydia helps her with close range shooting, while they work together on plant identification. She quickly becomes the only true friend Lydia has, which helps make it easier when her mother dies. 

~~~

17

Stiles Stilinski is his full name. She knows Scott and Kira well by now, Kira lives next to her and Scott and Alison are as close to dating as they can be. But Stiles stays away from her, keeps a distance between them she can’t seem to fix. She didn’t even know he had a last name before today. 

Stiles has issues with authority. It’s obvious and a problem, especially when he does things like go off-mission. This time, he thinks the suspect has an accomplice, even though the briefing packet clearly states they don’t. It’s the second time he’s left his post this month. 

The first time he went off mission was for a bomb threat and he ended up “saving” her. The practice bombs are just loud flashes of light and sound, but he still left his post and came out of nowhere to tackle her out of the way. He takes the training seriously enough that she had a massive bruise on her side for weeks. 

This time, he’s running after someone he shouldn’t be. Lydia would be pissed, except she has her own thing to focus on and she thinks he’s right. She’s in the sniper nest, technically she’d be off-com for something like this, but it’s practice so they leave it on for now. She’s able to see the whole thing play out, sees the moment he decides to go off script. 

(Privately, Lydia thinks Stiles is the smartest one here, including herself. His instincts are unparalleled, as if he’s got some third sense about things.)

Besides all that however, Chris’s yell cuts across the com, scaring Kira into firing, so that paint splatters the wall next to the targets head. It ends the whole mission and Lydia puts her head down gently on the rock in frustration. 

They haven’t been able to get through a scenario in weeks. Everybody is tense and on edge, waiting for Alison to come back from her first mission. Chris would never yell, except for the fact that his daughter is in the middle of a war zone with his wife. 

He’ll apologise later, but she’s just excited to know Stiles’s full name. He’s been avoiding her, ever since she joined Post, since she started trying to get to know him. He’d walked away from her first attempt at conversation without a word. 

~~~

21

The third time Stiles tells her he loves her, he’s not even there. It shouldn’t be romantic, shouldn’t make her heart flutter or her breath catch. He sends her a fucking head for Christ sake. Still, the head arrives in a wooden box, filled with lavender, and the note makes her breath catch, makes tears fall down her cheeks for the first time in years. 

“For your mother.” Is all the note says. It’s unsigned, and technically not even his handwriting, but the code is theirs, one she created a year ago. Nobody else could decipher it except for the two of them. 

She loves him. 

~~~

16

A bomb goes off in France, some kind of terror attack and her mom is in the middle of it. She gets the call from some embassy, asking about her father or any relatives they need to alert. She hangs up and goes straight to the range. Alison isn’t there yet, but Scott is. 

“My mom died, where’s Alison?” She asks in a dead tone. His mouth pops open in shock, before he scrambles for one of their radios. 

Alison is there less than ten minutes later, her arms around her. Lydia doesn’t cry, but her throat feels wet and she can’t seem to get enough air in. Eventually, Alison takes her home and stays the night with her. 

When she wakes up, Scott is in the kitchen making pancakes, and Alison is scarfing one down. They smile and try to make her talk, but she just shrugs at everything. Eventually she makes them take her to the range, where she grabs a riffle and scope. Alison has to go talk to her dad, so Scott ends up driving her to the sniper nests. 

She’s there for three hours before Scott leaves and Chris arrives. He asks about remaining family, but she has none, has nobody else. He nods in understanding, and she goes back to shooting. Alison comes back before sundown, and she gets in the truck numbly. Her breathing feels steadier though, and the tightness in her throat is gone. 

“Thank you.” She says, her voice dry but broken enough that Alison immediately looks more worried. She hops out of the truck quickly, puts her things away, puts her headphones in to avoid conversation, lets Alison drive her home. 

Her mother’s body is sent home a week later, and the funeral happens two days after. It’s soft and sweet, pink chrysanthemums and lavender placed all over. Lydia cries silently, and holds Alison’s hand. 

She goes home, and a social worker is there. (Privately Lydia thinks it took them long enough.) They want to send her to foster care, until she’s 18. They’ll probably move her to a new city, and she’ll be with a nice temporary home.

This is how she meets Derek Hale. He marches into her home as soon as the words leave the woman’s mouth. He wraps her in a hug and tells her he’s so sorry. He calls her sweetheart and all these pet names, and then shows the woman adoption papers with him as her legal guardian. 

She’s about to panic, to start denying all of it, when she catches Alison outside the window. The signals she gives aren’t the clearest, but Lydia recognises “shut up” clear enough. She says nothing, excuses herself to her room under the pretence of emotions, lets her “step-dad” take care of the worker. 

Alison is already siting on her bed. In the end, she ends up at Overwatch with Alison, Scott, and Ardent explaining what the training course really is. 

Apparently she’s been training with a bunch of government assassin for months. She’s surprised by how much that doesn’t affect her. Surprised by how easily she accepts it, let’s herself be brought in and briefed. What else was she going to do, stop shooting guns? Not likely. Besides, it’s as interesting a career as she could ever have, especially when they explain what she’ll be doing. And it doesn’t remind her of her mom. 

~~~

19

He’s got his hands around her throat, and her legs are dangling in the air. It’s not a fair fight, the woman is half his size, but she’s also one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, and expert bomb designer. Lydia wants to pull the trigger, wants to stop him from having to do this, but she can’t. He’d never forgive her and one of them, or both, would be punished severely, maybe even transferred away. Nothing is worth jeopardising the mission. Nothing is worth transferring away. 

It ends quickly enough. The woman slumps and Stiles sets her down gently. Isaac comes into the room with the room service truck, and they tuck her into it neatly. Isaac rolls out, and Malia takes over watching him. If she does well enough, and nothing goes wrong, she’ll be allowed to join more missions like this one. 

Lydia focuses on Stiles, on the way he sets his shoulders and breathes in and out while he cleans the place. He doesn’t miss a spot, and that’s how she knows the guilt is eating at him again. Ten minutes, and he’s out the door and heading to the lobby. She should pack up, but she waits until he’s in the cab, away from the hotel. 

She packs fast, but it’s still a clean job, and she rushes down to the street. Her coat is a vibrant red, one that should clash with her hair but actually brings it out nicely. She’s talking obnoxiously into a phone, acting as though there’s a huge problem. If she draws enough attention, less people will notice the large truck ducking out of the alley at the end of the street.

She shouts some more into the phone, until the all clear sounds. She hangs up, and calls a cab, getting in with a huff. 

“Excellent work Lydia.” Chris says into her ear, and she pretends the praise doesn’t make her feel a little better. She signs them off, agrees to the rendezvous in two hours at the Budapest airport. She turns her com off and quickly makes her way to the hotel, to find Stiles. 

~~~

17

Stiles Stilinski and Lydia Martin hate each other. It is a well known fact at Overwatch, how much the two despise and compete with each other. 

Previously, Stiles was the best at knives and hand to hand. Now? Lydia matches him step for step, until watching them fight means really watching, to make sure one of them isn’t about to seriously injure the other.

(Privately, the officers make bets on them. Who will fall in love first, who will break first. It’s a hot topic at Overwatch.)

It’s not until Lydia starts really excelling as a sniper in simulation, that things start to calm. The soldiers and officers see the way Stiles watches her as she shoots, see how his eyes don’t leave her face. It might seem like he hates her, but he’s as enraptured by her as any teenager could be. 

She’s oblivious to it all. Both his and her own feelings. She flirts with the officers, and then checks to see if he’s watching. Or, she’ll wait until he arrives at The Ring to start picking partners, to begin her own practice. She doesn’t realise she’s doing it, that much is obvious, but she does it so obviously, anyone else can see it immediately. 

When Argent starts sending them on minor missions together, the bets escalate tenfold. It’s hilarious watching them in the field, how even on low-risk stakeouts he frets over her, and she watches him like a hawk. If this were any other situation, it would be the cutest thing in the world. 

As it is, they’re training to be government assassins, and they need to get over it. The officers think that’s why Argent tries to split them up, give them different partners. They do fine with Scott and Alison, but the precision and over preparedness isn’t there, doesn’t follow through. For whatever reason, the emotions between them make them better, instead of worse. After two months, they go back to their original pairs. And the betting comes back. 

Argent gets a lot of headaches, especially when he loses his bets. Especially when he has to cover it up, hide whatever they are from his own superiors. 

~~~

23

Stiles isn’t the same after West Africa. Even a year later he has nightmares about the world being destroyed by his inability to stop it. Coming to terms with Shanghai was easy compared to this. 

Now, his hands shake whenever he holds a gun, and crowded places make his skin crawl. Seeing Scott’s face when he’s not focused and turns to make a comment to Alison, it makes anger and frustration rise until Stiles can’t breathe. 

Lydia whispers to him that it’s not his fault, that he didn’t know. There’s nothing he could do. Logically, he knows she’s right, but he can’t help thinking he could have done more, could have warned them somehow without blowing his cover. 

But he didn’t know, had no idea Alison and Lydia were there, had a mission in Brussels at the same time. He didn’t even find out she was gone until months later, when he was pulled out. 

Logically, it shouldn’t be his fault. He didn’t make a time frame or a bomb, he didn’t chose a place. But he was there, in the meetings, he could have said “wait” done something to stop it. 

Instead, he was pulled out months later only to find Alison had been killed in the attack and his entire family was falling apart. 

Scott had disappeared for two weeks, which put him under “house arrest”, keeping him cooped up in the one place he shouldn’t be. Lydia stopped eating, stopped shooting, blames herself for not being with her, not stopping her, for not being able to warn Alison. Isaac is taken, sent under cover in his place, to finish the mission. Kira and Malia have been gone for weeks, taking down some kind of domestic mafia. 

Lydia and Scott have been alone, and Chris just pretends to move on. It’s the worst shape his little family has been in ever, and all he knows how to do is blame himself. 

~~~

18

Lydia wants to punch Matt Daehler in the face more than she has ever wanted to punch someone in her life. He’s been taunting her for an hour, as their fight rags on and he refuses to hit her. She’s almost exhausted, chasing after him trying to get him to fight back. She wishes she could strangle him. 

He feints at her, and she uses his movement to yank him forward and trip him. It would work, except he’s prepared for it, is already shifting his weight and pulling her instead, until she’s flush against him. 

This, she knows how to use. She smirks before turning her eyes up at him and blinking. She lets her mouth part and a little sigh to escape, pushes her hips forward just a bit. His eyes darken in response, like she knew they would. Still pushing her hips forward, she moves her hand up his chest slowly, and he inhales a sharp breath, his grip on her arm slackening slightly. 

Her hand is light, seductive on his chest, until it suddenly snakes up and wraps around his throat. She throws him down before he can react, pins him there with a foot on his left arm and her knee on his right shoulder. He’s strong, and it’s a struggle to hold him like this, but she only needs three seconds. 

Distantly, she hears Kira count them, ring the bell. She jumps off him quickly, stalks to the other side of the mat and picks up her water bottle. She’s in the middle of a swig when she hears his feet running at her. She doesn’t have enough time to turn, so she drops like dead weight. 

She’s expecting him to either stop or run over her, but neither happen. Instead she hears his body hit the floor and looks over to see Stiles has tackled him to the ground. They’re fighting now, but Stiles is clearly winning. He gets a punch in that makes blood spurt from Matt’s nose, and Lydia suddenly realises she needs to stop this. 

She wraps her arms around Stiles’s torso and yanks, hard enough to pull him off Matt, and drags him away. He tries to struggle but when she whispers “it’s me” he relaxes and lets her drag him out to the ring. 

An Overwatcher picks Matt off the floor, who is evidently knocked out. He’s dragged out of the room, and people turn from him to her and Stiles with wide eyes. 

Usually, the fighting doesn’t get so brutal until active training. People are going easy this early in the morning. Still, nobody seems surprised when they realise it’s them. 

“You have to stop doing that.” She says lets her arms drop from around him. She turns him around to look at his face, and brushes her finger against his bloody eyebrow. “C’mon.” She says, turning towards the first aid station in the corner. 

He follows her quietly, sits on the stool she points at without complaint. She patches him quickly, and not very gently, but he doesn’t make a sound. 

“I can fight my own battles.” She says, stepping back and crossing her arms. 

“I know that!” He says indigently, and she raises an eyebrow at him. “Maybe I just really wanted to hit Daehler.” He says it with a pout, and it makes her want to laugh. 

“What were you even doing by my ring?” She asks instead if laughing, because she’s still a little mad. 

“Uh, refilling my water?” He asks, and she rolls her eyes. It’s a pathetic excuse but she lets him get away with it. 

“Fine.” She says, eyes flicking to the score board. “We’re still tied, so we can fight next.” He opens his mouth, probably to protest, but she turns away before he can. He lets out a sigh behind her and she lets the smile grace her face for a moment. 

Ten minutes later another ring is open, one without fresh blood all over it, and she steps in. He follows a second later, and Lydia ignores the looks people send each other. 

She knows what they say about the two of them, the bets they make. Eyes will be on them the entire match. She shrugs it off, shakes out her shoulders until he sets up. There’s no bell or bowing to start a match, they just go. With others, it’s always a slightly offbeat decision, figuring out who will go first. Lydia’s not very patient, so it’s usually her, but neither is Stiles. From their first fight it was easy, smooth. They both start at the same time, one of them shifting feet, the other shifting in response, and then the ducking and punching begins. 

They barely touch each other, each punch a second behind a dodge, each movement already predicted by the other. Derek once said watching them fight was like watching a well choreographed dance; beautiful and deadly how well they fit together. 

Their fights don’t end easy, neither able to hit without a concession, one of them giving in. Unfortunately, neither likes to do that, so they tend to find themselves heaving in gasps of air and wishing for someone else to tell them to stop. It’s an exercise in stamina for both of them. 

This fight isn’t really that different, it’s still a dance, still muscle memory between the two. It’s just also closer quarters than usual. They’ve recently been learning about close contact effect, how a short distance but well placed hit can damage more than one with a large wind up. Again, they’re on the same page, both practicing the close touches and escapes. 

Knuckles brush each other’s shoulders, Lydia’s punch misses, just grazes her knuckles against his ribs. He breathes in sharply, just as his hand brushes her hip. Lydia’s heart is beating furiously, and at the same time they both take a step back from each other, heaving. 

“Stop.” A voice says, and they turn to see Derek there. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes are light with amusement. Lydia rolls her eyes, but steps out of the ring toward him anyways. 

“What’s up old man?” She asks, and gets a glare in response. He waits for Stiles to step up before speaking. 

“We need the rings today, take a break before shooting, go for a hike, take a shower, do something about this.” He waves a hand between them, and Lydia scoffs. 

“Whatever you say.” Stiles says, also rolling his eyes. The two of them grab their bags before walking out the door together. “Hike?” He asks once they’re outside, but it’s a hot day and Lydia would rather take the shower. 

“Go ahead, but I’m gonna shower.” She says with a wink, and walks away from him. He’s probably glaring at her back now, and the thought makes her smirk. He follows eventually, like she knew he would. His hand brushes hers at one point, and she furiously fights the blush from rising. When it happens again, she cuts her eyes at him sharply. He’s biting his lip, looking away from her, and it makes her feel stupidly fond. She brushes her hand against his the next time, and his ear turn red. 

By the time they make it to the bathrooms, she feels pink and flushed, and the cold shower feels much better than any hike. They end up in the common room, watching an episode of some cheesy cop show. After an hour or so, Lydia realises she’s happy, for the first time in a long time, she feels happy. 

~~~

24

He leaves in the middle of a mission. She takes her eyes off him for two seconds, to track the target until Malia takes over, and when she turns back he’s gone. At first, she thinks he’s just out of sight, around a corner a little ahead of schedule. It’s unusual but not unheard of for him. But then a minute passes and she doesn’t seem him. 

She’s crushed but not surprised. She’s felt it in him for months now, almost a year. Nothing has been okay for him since Alison, since their family fell apart. He still has nightmares about his time with the Nogitsune, the things he had to do for them. She wakes up sometimes to his shaking body in her arms. He doesn’t tell her, refuses to explain what he’s done, but she hears enough in his sleep to know how bad it really is. 

Her leaving hasn’t helped, having to go under for two months made things worse. She came back to a room full of red string and sketches of Nogitsune members everywhere. She’d helped him pull them down, throw them out, but she knew it didn’t change anything, his obsession wasn’t gone. She found them in a file in his desk a month later. 

So no, she isn’t surprised. She’s exhausted, and she’s going to miss him, but she understands why he needs to do this. She loves him after all. 

~~~

18

She kisses him somewhat by accident. Well, as much as kissing someone can be an accident. 

They’re in the woods at night, playing thermal tag, and she has the glasses. She catches Alison first try, because she forgot to put some cold mud over the entirety of her left leg. Alison groans, but takes it easily. It’s her fourth time being “it,” making her officially the worst thermal hider. 

Lydia runs quickly, toward the mud pit. A few years ago, this would have been the most disgusting idea to her. Now though? Now she has to stifle a laugh as she covers herself in mud and runs away to hide. She’s rushing through the trees, when an arms snakes out and grabs her, pushing her back to a tree. A hand slips around her mouth before she can scream, and she starts to thrash. 

“It’s me!” Stiles whispers into her ear, and she stills, searching out his eyes above the black mouth and nose wrap. “Listen.” He says, and she statins her ears until she can hear the quiet footsteps. Alison, judging by the lightness of it, and she’s coming right towards them. She pulls Stiles in more, until her chest is flat against his and the tree is mostly blocking them. Alison is still walking towards them though, and Stiles taps her should twice. She looks, and he points up. A tree branch is about a foot above her head, and she nods quickly. She reaches, and he lifts her quickly and quietly, until she’s wrapped around the branch. Then he pulls himself up, just in time for Alison to walk around the trunk. 

Alison looks around confused, before huffing and trudging on through the forest. Lydia waits five minutes before pulling her face wrap down and allowing herself to let out a small snicker. Stiles lets out a gruff, mostly silent chuckle next to her, and she turns her face towards him. 

She can’t see very well, so it’s really not her fault, and she didn’t know he’d pulled his mask down too. Besides, when she laughs her head leans forwards, it’s just how she laughs. So when another little snicker comes out and she leans forward just as he does, it’s really not her fault that their lips kind of collide. 

Her hands reaching for his face though? Yeah, that one’s definitely on her. 

His own hands end up on her waist, pulling her forwards until her chest is just barely touching his. It’s awkward, because they’re both straddling a tree branch, her legs stretched around it to keep her upright, and mostly covered in mud, but it’s also amazing. His tongue runs across her lips, and she opens her mouth with a tiny gasp. One of his hands slides up, cupping her jaw, while hers dive into his mud coated hair and pull just a little bit. 

He lets out a small moan, which shocks her out of it. She pulls back, but forgets to release his hair, so she ends up pulling him forward too far and he loses his balance, pushing into her. They don’t fall, thankfully, but she ends up with her back on the branch and him on top of her, clutching the branch beneath her. She can feel both of their hearts racing, and she can’t tell if it’s from almost falling, or from the kiss. 

He pulls up slightly, but they start to fall again when he goes to far, so he ends up carefully balanced a few inches away from her face. She can see his outline and feel his breath on her cheek, and this time it’s really her fault. 

She still has both hands in his hair, so when she pulls him down he goes with another moan. He finds her cheek first, and then her lips, and she sighs into the kiss. He settles a little more of his weight onto her, and she has to fight herself from wrapping a leg around his waist. Her legs could be the only thing keeping them steady on the branch. 

“Olly-olly!” A voice shouts, and they jump apart. This time, he does fall out of the tree, and she nearly goes with him, but manages to grab on at the last moment. He groans when he sits up, rubbing his left arm, before standing slowly. She lowers herself by her arms, is about to let go and brace herself, when his hands wrap around her waist and lower her down slowly. Her back is to his front, and when he doesn’t let go immediately, she pushes back into him just a little. 

His head drops to her shoulder, and his hands pull her tighter against him. He’s hard, she can feel him against her backside, and she wants to rub against him, to feel more. 

“Olly-olly!” The voice calls again, and they jump apart. It’s Derek calling, which means the game is over. She tries to stammer out something, to say anything, excuse everything that just happened somehow, but she ends up running away, towards the voice instead. 

The clearing lights up a second later, so it’s easy to find her way there. Bright stadium lights illuminate everyone else, as she runs into the circle. Stiles is only a minute behind her, and she walks straight toward Alison and Kira to avoid him. 

“Stiles wins.” Derek announces, and everyone else rolls their eyes or groans. He’s never lost a game of thermal tag, is exceedingly good at hiding. “Go shower, you look like shit.” He finishes and walks off to the jeep. They get to walk the mile back to the barracks. 

It doesn’t take long, they all poke fun of Allison and Isaac for being the worst. They try to goad Stiles, but everyone quickly realises his thoughts are elsewhere. Lydia’s glad she’s got mud all over, can pull the mask back up and pretended she’s just cold, because her face is definitely bright red. 

When they do finally get to the barracks, construction on the men’s showers hasn’t finished, even though it was supposed to that afternoon. Everyone rolls their eyes as they file into the girls shower room. There’s seven stalls, more than enough for each of them, but it’s a tight fit having all their stuff on the shelves. 

Construction has been going for a week, after a pipe burst in the men’s bathroom, so they’ve been sharing. Usually they schedule it, keep it one by one or two at a time. But they’re all covered in mud so there’s no use in trying to do that now. 

Naturally, Lydia ends up in a stall next to Stiles. It would be fine, if the stalls had solid walls. Instead, they’re curtains, strung up between each. They’re completely solid at least, so no shapes or outlines shine though. 

It’s just incredibly strange that Stiles is right there, after what just happened. Still, the mud takes priority, especially with her long, tangled hair. Kira is out in 15 minutes, Alison in 20, while Lydia is still trying get the mud out of the top half of her hair. She doesn’t know how they do it, it always takes her at least an hour. Scott and Isaac were out in five, it almost makes her want to shave her head. Almost. 

She’s so lost in her thoughts, she doesn’t realise it’s just her and Stiles now. Not until he clears his throat, and it makes her jump. She holds still under the water, waiting for him to say something, but he never does. Eventually she moves again, attempts to comb through her hair. 

It’s going somewhat well, until she suddenly gets stuck, a knot wrapping itself so securely around her fingers she can’t pull it out without tears sprinting to her eyes. “Ow ow ow!” She shouts, trying to pull her hand out. 

“Are you okay?” Stiles asks, and she stills. Her hand is very stuck, and if it were anyone else she wouldn’t think twice about asking. That’s the logic she goes with at least. 

“My hand is stuck... In my hair.” She says, and huffs when he starts laughing. “Don’t laugh, I need you help!” His laugh cuts off abruptly, almost like he may have choked on air. She smirks at that, because she loves having the upper hand (or at least pretending she does). 

“Uh, what do you want me to do?” He asks shakily. 

“Untangle it?” She says in a duh voice, hoping to dispel some of the tension. It doesn’t really help, but she feels better having done it. He turns his water off, and she closes her eyes as the curtains shift to let him through. 

“Oh shit.” He says, and the tension fades briefly. “That looks painful.” 

“No shit.” She snorts, but stills when his hands touch her hair. He’s far enough back that nothing else touches her, but she can feel him there, near her. It takes him a bit to figure out what to do, but She doesn’t open her eyes until he tugs her hand free. He’s still standing to her back, could easily slip away back to his own shower. But he doesn’t. 

Instead, he pushes his fingers between hers, so the back of her hand is to his palm. His other hand rises to touch her waist lightly, to run up toward her ribs. She breathes in shakily, wants to gasp at the light sensation. His fingers curl out then, covering her stomach and pulling her back. She lets him, goes easily until she’s pressed flush against him. He’s hard against her, like he was in the forest, and it makes her gasp when he pushes a little closer. She pulls their linked hands forward, until both his hands are around her waist. She lets go of his arms then, and puts her hands up, one on his shoulder and one in his hair. He pushes against her again, and she moans. One of his hands quickly slides up, covers her mouth and muffles the sound. He pushes forward again, a little harder, and slides his other hand down at the same time. 

She’s glad his hand is keeping her mouth closed, or she’d probably make a very embarrassing noise as his fingers brush against her. She pushes against them, rubs herself back into him, her forehead falling to the shower wall, making him jerk against her. She’s never felt like this before, not with the hook ups when she was in high school, not even the first time she shot a Barrett M82. 

Her entire body feels like it’s on fire, every place he touches her is like sparks. She’s breathless with just a few strokes, and even though she knows water is one of the worst lubricants, knows it’s been years and it’s probably going to hurt a bit, she still grabs him, pushes him just inside her, and then lets him push the rest of the way in. 

It’s like a breath of fresh air, like a cool drink of water on a hot day. Everything in her tenses and relaxes at the same time, while he groans into her shoulder, muffling his own continuous moans into her neck. He keeps his hand around her mouth, and she’s grateful, unable to stop the sounds from coming out as he moves. 

Neither of them last long. Within minutes she’s tensing, gasping into his hand. His other hand squeezes her hip and somehow she knows, just like they can read each other in the ring, she can read his little movements now. She’s still coming as he jerks inside her, biting into her shoulder to stifle the sounds he makes. 

They don’t move for a minute, the running water the only sound, until Stiles slowly pulls out of her. They both gasp a little at the lack of contact, and she pushes down a whimper when his hands pull away from her. He kisses her shoulder once, and then slides through the curtain back to his own shower. He turns the water on while she turns to continue washing the mud out. 

He leaves before her. Turning the water off, towelling dry, and walking out before she’s done. It takes her a few more minutes before the mud is finally gone and she can step out. She heads back to her room in silence, trying to wrap her head around everything that just happened. 

~~~

17

For the first three months Lydia sticks with guns. She gets access to everything. Anything. She asks, and they provide. She shoots colts, pistols, rifles, anything she can get her hands on. She wants to feel the way she felt the first time. She wants to feel powerful, in control. But she can’t feel anything. 

Her mother’s name rings in her head. Over and over. News of the bombing. Chris Argent giving her her new life. Meetings with someone called Coach, who’s something between a therapist and a chef. Meeting Chris’s wife, meeting Derek again, meeting every single Overwatch supervisor on the campus. It’s overwhelming and after a while her brain stops computing, and then the only thing she gets cleared to do is shoot at their private gun range. 

Chris’s wife, a tall, brusque woman, is the first one to hit her. She hasn’t been cleared for hand to hand since her first week. Not since she (accidentally!) gave Theo-Something a black eye, broken nose, and cracked rib, for coming towards her without warning. She hadn’t known that when you entered The Mats, you were free game. 

She was pulled off him roughly, and she hasn’t been allowed back. She’s been constrained to her gun range and her bedrooms. 

But Mrs. Argent, fondly called Silver, took her one day. Tore her from the range, threw her in the back of the truck, and took her to The Mats. 

Silver swings, hitting Lydia’s shoulder, not too hard, but enough that Lydia jumps back automatically, throwing her further into the middle of the room. All around her people are fighting, but there’s no rhyme or reason to it. No alliances, no working together, just everyone going at everyone. Silver yanks Lydia back towards the door, off the edge of the mat. 

“Guns are fun, but they’re not helping you anymore. You need to hit something.” She says, her voice rough. Lydia has an odd feeling that she speaks from experience, but it’s not her business so she shakes it off. 

“I’m allowed?” Is what she says, and Silver smirks, nodding her head towards the mat. 

Lydia takes slow steps, keeps to the edge while she watches the others. She was wrong at first, thinking there were no allies. It’s easy to see now, how some people naturally, maybe even accidentally work together. 

Alison and Scott keep their backs to each other, covering, sometimes switching places to off-set their opponents. In the corner, Kira nearly seems to fly, from opponent to opponent, none of whom get too close, as if they don’t want to hurt her. But the middle of the floor is really what catches her eye, as she watches the boy from the shooting range. He’s surrounded, looks as though he could be taken down any second, but none of them advance. In fact, after a moment, two of them split off, choosing to fight each other instead of him. 

It’s a poor strategy in Lydia’s mind, but before she can watch further, Silver gives her a hard shove, and she goes wheeling into the mat. Nobody comes towards her at first, caught up in their original fights, but then a guy gets pushed out of a four person ring, nearly falls into her, and in the same moment, takes a swing at her. 

She dodges automatically, without thought, and moves into the the minimal training she has, spinning, punching, kicking her way through the masses of people. She’s not focusing on anything, in fact her mind feels blissfully blank except for the running catalogue of hits, who touches her, how many she gets in. For the first time in weeks everything melts away except for the way her body moves and the people around her. 

She doesn’t know how it happened, to tell the truth she wasn’t paying attention beyond the next punch, the next dodge, but somehow she went from the edge of the mat to the Center. She spins when her current opponent goes down, turning to face the heat of the body behind her, and has to duck as soon as she does. The fist doesn’t come towards her though, but the guy she throught she just just dropped. He falls with a groan, and she blinks at him, then at the gun range boy. His hair is slightly longer now, he has a bit of scruff coming in, and it looks good on him. The glare he sends at her, not so much. 

“Pay attention or get out.” He says lowly to her, and she’s about to retort, when he suddenly shoves her behind him with one hand, and shoots a kick to a girl who was trying to sneak up on her. She blinks at him again, but then bodies are coming, so she turns, back to back with him. She’s not sure she can actually count on him, but at that moment a small Japanese girl flies towards her so she decides to trust he’s not about to turn and deck her, focusing on blocking Kira until she gets bored and moves to someone else. 

They go like that for a bit, her back to him, until a large bell suddenly rings, and everyone stops, relaxing their stances and turning to the door. Lydia follows suit, and stiffens when Coach walks through, arms folded, and glares, first at Silver, then at Lydia. 

“Martin.” He says, and Lydia moves quickly toward him. The anger in his tone is telling, and she fights an embarrassed blush as everyone watches her. 

“Coach.” Silver warns, but he shoots her a silencing glare, which she rolls her eyes at but concedes to. 

“I thought I told you to stick to the range.” He says when she gets to him, and his disappointed tone rankles her, her shoulders going stiff. 

“Ran out of bullets,” Slips out before she can stop it, Silver covers her laugh with a cough, and Lydia belatedly adds, “Sir.” 

“I’m sure.” He raises an eyebrow, eyes flicking over what must be a new bruise on her shoulder, maybe one on her jaw. He turns to the others and shouts, “take a break.” They look from Coach to Lydia in confusion, but some of them begin walking to the edges of the mat, while a few others pickup some less intense fighting. Coach starts moving, through the doors, catching her attention with a, “Come along, Martin.”

She follows him out of the room, fights the urge to look back, and trails him down the hall. She tenses a bit when they come to Chris’s office, but doesn’t let her apprehension stop her. She hasn’t seen him since her first week, since she signed the official papers, signed away her life to this place, and she doesn’t know what to expect. 

A wide smile at the sight of her definitely takes her by surprise. He waves them in, and they sit across the desk from him. 

“So?” Chris says to Coach, who shifts in the chair a bit awkwardly. “Don’t worry Coach, I know my wife pushed this. You can speak freely.”

“Frankly, she’s not ready. She’s too old and the trauma hasn’t been solved. But,” he takes a deep breath, “Silver was right, keeping her to the range won’t work anymore. It’s making things worse.”

“Yes she was fairly adamant about that, wasn’t she.” Chris says with a big smile, and Lydia fights the urge to smile back, while she tries to understand what’s going on. “Well, what’s your official recommendation?”

“Martin should start training with the others. Including the post team.” Coach says, which seams to surprise Chris. 

“The post team? Really?”

“I watched her on The Mats, she’ll do best with them. And as I understand she’s an excellent sniper, something they seem to still be missing.”

“You know how difficult it will be, trying to get her to fit, trying to get them to accept her.”

“Your job, not mine.” Coach shrugs, and Chris sighs. 

“Excuse me,” Lydia interrupts, tired of trying to puzzle out what they’re saying. “But what is happening right now?”

“Oh yes,” Chris chuckles again, and looks her in the eye, “we’re going to move you into active training, and we’re discussing which team you should join. Post has Alison and Scott on it,” he clarifies, “as well as a few others. They’re one of our primary teams, but they’ve... struggled in the past to get along with new trainees.”

“Oh.” Lydia says. She doesn’t really understand, but she has a feeling she shouldn’t ask more questions. 

“Good luck.” Coach says gruffly, before giving Chris a lazy salute and leaving the room. Chris turns to her, but rises and gestures for her to do the same. 

“Come, I’ll take you to the simulation room, and we can meet your new team there.” She follows him through the halls, coming to two double doors and stepping through into a large empty chamber. Concrete and stone line the floor and walls, and four people sit in the Center, looking up at their arrival. 

“Hey!” Alison says, getting up and coming toward them. “So is it true? She’s cleared now?” 

“Alison, patience please.” Chris says with a smile while she rolls her eyes. “For those of you who haven’t met,” he says, which is sort of redundant as she knows all of them in some way, “this is Lydia Martin. She’ll be joining Post.”

“I knew it!” Alison says, jumping once, reaching for Lydia’s hand and dragging her toward the others. “You’re going to fit in great.”

“No.” The black haired boy from the shooting range says. He’s glaring at Lydia, and then Alison, and then Chris, before getting up and brushing past Lydia and out the doors. 

“Ignore him,” Scott says, laughing uncomfortably, in the silence of his exit, “he’ll come around.”

“Sure.” Lydia says, not really believing it. But then Alison is talking a mile a minute, explaining what Post is, so Lydia pushes him to the back of her mind. 

~~~

26

He finds her again that year. She’s on the Italian coast, an actual vacation of all things. Five days to herself. She’s not alone, of course, there’s an Overwatch keeping track of her, watching, but it’s Marie, who has a weakness for wine. Lydia gives her an expensive bottle with a wink, and she knows Marie will be out like a light within the hour. She won’t admit it to herself, but she’s hoping it’s enough. 

She’s never been here before. Only ever told Stiles that it was a dream to go here one day. Chris gave her free reign though and she said “I’ve never done the Amalfi coast” and she was on a flight three days later. It’s a reward, or an apology. Both really, for sending her to Paris. She knows Chris didn’t have a choice, but she also knows he broke his last promise to her with that. Broke something inside her. 

She waits, hoping, but by 11:30 she’s still alone and she gives up. Goes inside, closes the blinds and curls into a ball on the bed. She doesn’t cry so much as her eyes begin watering heavily, and she lies there in silence until sleep claims her. 

She wakes with a start, a hand sliding over her side as as body curls around her from behind, and she relaxes into it. He kisses her hair, her shoulder, the back of her neck, and she sighs softly into it. 

“Hi.” He whispers, and she smiles, rolling to look at him. His hair’s grown out again, shaggy, and the hint of a beard is growing in. She combs her hand through his hair and closes her eyes for a second, tries to memorise how it feels. 

“I miss you.” She says, and he pulls her close, rolling so her head is on his chest. 

“I miss you too.”

“How much longer.” She asks, and he stiffens beneath her. She roses up to look down at him. “Please, I can’t keep going like this. I need you.” 

“I’m sorry.” He says, and she puts her head back down, tries to get closer, as if she could just bury him inside her. “I can’t stop yet. Not until it’s done.”

“Let me help you.” She says, and his hands convulse over her, digging in tighter. 

“No.” He says, voice dark and violent. “I never want you to see the things they make-“ he cuts himself off and she sighs. She knows, they’ve had this conversation before, but she’s been lonelier the last few months than ever before. 

“I love you.” She whispers into his chest, and he kisses the top of her head. 

“I love you too.”

They stay like that, until she eventually falls asleep. In the morning he’s gone and she goes back to her vacation as if nothing happened. 

~~~

17

Post, according to Alison’s explanation, is their youngest team of active agents. Some of the other teams have their 15-16 year old trainees who join the adults on missions when a veritable kid is needed for the cover, but for the most part they’re the youngest of the actives. They were originally called the Post-Graduates, people who could pass as high school grad to college students, but eventually people just started calling them Post. It’s helpful, because now they have a team called Grads, a bunch of mid-to-late twenty year olds who pose as graduate assistants and young professionals. 

Alison rambles for what feels like hours to Lydia. She goes over cases, each person’s position in the team. Lydia’s brain, always too logical, catalogues it all like a running list of information, like her AP psych notes last year. 

Scott- Expert in mediation techniques, hand to hand combat, cover story creation. Terrible at long distance shooting.  
Alison- Chameleon. Expert at blending in, disappearing, and oddly enough, archery. Still improving on interrogation techniques.  
Kira- Might be an actual ninja. Expert in sword fighting, knife throwing, and “sneak-skills”. Poor at speaking to other or long-term undercover missions.  
Stiles- Expert in pretty much everything it seems. The go-to for long term undercover and terrorist infiltration. According to Alison the only thing he doesn’t excel at is sniping. (Lydia also realises this is the gun range boy’s name. It suits him.)

“That’s where you come in!” Alison says, a wide smile on her face. Lydia has to wonder a bit of Alison is delusional about what it is they do, or if she’s just oblivious to the outside world. Or maybe she just really likes this life. Whatever it is, Lydia finds herself both irritated and enamoured by it. “Plus, once we get you trained fully, you’ll be a great honey-pot or distraction!”

“No.” The boy from the range- Stiles- suddenly calls out. Lydia hadn’t realised he came back, but he stands next to the door, arms crossed, glaring at Alison. Alison just rolls her eyes back at him. 

“Ignore Stiles,” She says, pulling Lydia back towards Scott and Kira, who are practicing some sort of knife flipping, tossing it back and forth. “He doesn’t like new people, but he’ll get used to you eventually.”

“Sure.” Lydia says, not believing that for a second. If his behaviour towards her since she’s known him is anything to go by, he’d rather pretend she doesn’t exist. And now he has to work with her. She has a sinking feeling it’s not going to go well. 

~~~  
20

West Africa. She reads everything she can about it, spends hours in the library, books and laptop open to various things. She has access to the Overwatch counter intelligence site, she’s not sure when she got clearance for that, but she doesn’t ask. She looks and looks and looks until finally she rules out every terrorist cell, every single one except the Nogitsune. They’re more covert than the others, no suicide bombers or claiming accountability of large attacks. No, the Nogitsune are much more nuanced, much smarter than that. 

A bio-Chen attack in Russia from four years ago links back to them, something that took out 4,000 civilians in an hour. The next day the pipeline contract for that area goes through, no longer held back by the government. 

Two years ago a series of explosions on the coast of Spain, something attributed to an accident on a ship, that set off a chain reaction, resulted in an entire port being decimated. Within six months, a new port was up and running, with significantly different cargo coming through. Lydia suspects some kind of human trafficking. 

She spends hours coming through everything, any rumour of their involvement in disasters, until she feels like she can grasp the truth of the situation. That Stiles has been sent in to possibly one of the most dangerous terrorist cells in the world, and he’s probably been told not to stop any incoming attacks. Just to observe. 

He’s been gone for six months already. Longer than he’s been gone since she’s known him. At least, without her that is. Nobody has heard a peep from him, and it’s showing in Post while Isaac fills in, while they’re all tense on missions. Lydia misses his little commentary, he snarky remarks about their missions. The dichotomy between his borderline dissent and absolute devotion towards everything they do. She misses him so much her entire body aches with it. 

It’s a relief to be sent out, just her and Alison, an undercover recon op for some mysterious underground art auctions. It’s an easy in-and-out op. Alison will go in, pretending to be a french representative, and attempt to gather enough intel and rapport to be invited back the next time. 

She does. Alison always does, she’s incredibly good at getting people to talk now, manipulating them perfectly. She comes back and writes down pages of information, everything she can remember, and then passes out. Lydia forwards the information to Chris, and then passes out herself. 

When she wakes, there’s a pit in her stomach, like something terrible is going to happen. She tells Alison, but she just laughs, attributes it to mission jitters. They spend the day traipsing around the city, Alison donning a blonde wig for the day. They draw stares, and even after all these years it still makes discomfort crawl up her spine. She wishes they could blend in, disappear into the crowds, but they can’t. They need to draw as much attention as obnoxious Americans for the next two weeks, until the next auction arrives. 

Most days they go to the beach, the coast of Spain is beautiful this time of year, and they rent boats and paddle boards and pretend to be wealthy post grads. They say obnoxious things and pretend to gossip about people. Lydia has a painful flash of understanding, that if her mother was still alive, if she had never gone to the gun range, if she had moved with her mom, this could be her life. She could really be one of these girls, lying in the sand, judging other people and laughing too loud, carefree. 

She shakes the thoughts though, pushes them far, far away, and sets her focus on the mission.

Two days later Alison receives notice, that the new auction will be in Brussels, in a speakeasy underneath the city, a glamorous affair. She helps Alison get ready, a long blue dress, simple but with hidden pockets for all her knives. Heels that come to deadly points. Smokey makeup that changes the shape of her face, makes her almost unrecognisable. 

Lydia stays, sits in the hotel room, ignoring the still-constant pit in her stomach, and pours over the information Alison brought back last time. Mafiosos and government big shots don the pages, filling information about past buys and illegal deals made down their. She’s just pouring over the last of the notes, something about ivory traders, when an explosion rocks the entire city. 

Her hotel room shakes violently, while ten blocks away the Center of the city glows with a sudden and intense fire. The screams start soon after, and Lydia freezes as she looks out. In her head she can’t put together where the fires are versus where Alison is. They’re the same place, her head tells her, but it doesn’t make sense. Because where the Grand Palace Marketplace once stood, there is only glowing red fires, rubble everywhere. 

“Martin!” Anchor shouts, the Overwatch assigned as their backup, pulling her from the window, and shoving a phone in her hand. “It’s Argent.”

“Hello, sir.” She says automatically, but her voice is hollow, distant. 

“Lydia,” Argent says, voice cracking, “where is she?”

“She’s-“ Lydia cuts off on a sob, suddenly realising she’s crying, “she was there, Chris, she was there.”

The line clicks dead, and she hands the phone back to Anchor numbly. Marie enters after a moment, and the two of them work together to pack up the room, cleaning as they go. Lydia stares out the window at the fires until Marie pulls on her arm, dragging her away, into the hallway, to the elevator. 

“Shouldn’t we look for her.” Lydia says, voice wet and cracking. Marie looks at her with sympathy, pity, and Lydia looks away quickly. Anchor clears his throat and looks at the elevator door. They reach the lobby, and slip quickly through the masses of people. Marie shoves her into a car and it takes off, away from the city, drives an hour to a rural airport where she boards the private plane in silence. 

By the time they get back to base, Lydia’s years have dried and her mind has gone blank. She walks into the barracks and winces as Scott comes running up to her. When he realised its just her, that even that last little bit of hope he had is useless, he shuts down. He walks past her, and even though Lydia knows she should stop him. Should grab him, make him stay, she can’t even bring herself to do anything but walk to her room and lie down. 

She doesn’t move for two days. Scott doesn’t come back for two weeks. When he finally does come back, he finds her at the shooting range. She hasn’t been able to pick up her guns, hasn’t been able to do anything but set them up and then sit and stare into space.

Scott sits next to her, sinks slowly to his knees and pulls her gun away from her. He’s never been much of a sniper, but he shoots quickly and with enough precision that a brief flicker of wonder hits her brain, wants to ask where he’s been. But just as quickly it fades, because it doesn’t really matter. Without Alison nothing really matters. 

She and Scott go through the motions after that. He’s grounded, not allowed to leave, and she refuses any missions thrown her way, no matter how enticing Derek makes them sound or how he yells. She can’t even finish a bowl of yogurt in the mornings, hasn’t shot a gun in a month, is the most useless she’s ever been. Her bones start peeking out, hips and ribs and collar bones shinning through her skin. Scott starts to look at her with worry, starts putting extra food in her tray and not letting her leave until she eats it. 

Somehow the two of them pull each other out. He makes her eat, she pulls him into the ring one day, makes them fight. A week later her puts a gun in her hand and tells her to shoot. She misses the target completely, lets a little bit of frustration in until she’s angry enough to start trying again. She has four head shots in a row before she takes a ragged breath. She turns to Scott and he gives her the smallest of smiles. It’s progress. 

A week later, there’s another explosion. Identical to the one in Brussels. It tears apart a small port in West Africa, killing a few hundred. Something in Lydia snaps. She throws herself back into training, begins waking up early and going to bed late, grabbing food on the go to the gun range, to The Mats, to The Rings, hiking, running. She pushes herself harder than she ever has, to the edge of her limits. 

She isn’t surprised when she pushes too hard, collapses in the middle of a run, her head hitting the track and blackness descending over her. 

When she wakes, someone is holding her hand. There’s the beep of machines, and something in her arm, and she opens her eyes slowly, expecting to see Scott’s face. 

Instead, she opens her eyes and her heart nearly stops. Stiles stares at her, reaches out to touch her cheek, and tears start flowing freely. She gasps on a sob, and he leans closer, pushes his forehead to hers. 

“I’m sorry,” he says while she cries, “I’m so sorry.”

~~~

21

The fourth time he tells her he loves her, she says it back. 

There’s nothing special about it, about anything, nothing different. They’re just sitting on the couch, watching that shitty cop show. It’s been three months since he came back, since she collapsed and woke up to him. Three months since he had to watch hundreds of people die in West Africa, and pretend to be one just to get out of the Nogtisune’s clutches. 

They’ve hailed him as a hero. Back door access that he provided to their servers shows propaganda hailing him on their leader board. He’s practically a martyr for them. Chris agreed that he could stay until Lydia and Scott were ready again, until Post could be a team again. 

Lydia doesn’t tell Chris that they’ll never be Post again, not really. He already knows. 

But she and Stiles are sitting on the couch, carefully angled so the cameras can’t see their hands brushing together. It’s a new nervous habit of his, trying to be in physical contact at all times with her. A year ago she would’ve hated it, would’ve told him to leave her alone, but now she clings to the touches just as much as he does. 

It’s a commercial break when he says it, low, just quiet enough the cameras won’t pick it up, but loud enough for her to hear. 

“I love you.” And it feels like a shower after a game of thermal tag, like shooting a new gun for the first time, like a deep breath after being underwater for too long. 

“I love you too.” She says just as quietly, lets herself hold his hand tight for a moment before turning back to the soft touches. He doesn’t smile, because none of them really smile anymore, but she knows his face like the back of her hand. Knows the little twitch of his mouth, the small flush on his cheeks, can read his happiness as if her were shouting it at her. 

After that they learn to say it in other ways, years of practicing with each other, of knowing each other better than anyone else, make it easy. In the ring, a pulled punch that leaves a brush of finger tips on her cheek. At the shooting range, a playful shot at his target instead of her own. On the mats, backs pressed together, working together so easily it’s kind of a wonder anyone even tries to attack them. 

And during breaks, at night, in the woods, in brief little moments away from cameras. Stolen kisses and caresses, fleeting smiles and winks. All of it leaves her breathless, waiting with baited breath for the next moment, next touch, next anything. 

It shouldn’t take her so much by surprise when Coach decides it’s time for them to go back into the field. She thought they were being sneaky, but she forgot that even if they never got caught, anyone could see the improvement in their fighting, in the lifting of their spirits. And after all, this is still their life, their job, their only existence. What else could she have expected to happen?

~~~

27

He finds her on Alison’s birthday. She’d cursed Chris for hours, once he told her where she was going, had cried to Scott, but it didn’t make a difference. Off to Brussels’s she went. 

It was supposed to be three months of gathering information, casual undercover work. If it weren’t for the location, for the dates, it would be fine. 

As it is, less than five weeks in and it’s Alison’s birthday. She tries to avoid it, the recently rebuilt marketplace and the reminders all over of Alison. Down that street was a tea store they bought gifts at, and if she got in a car right now she could be at the beach they spent almost a week at. 

But of course this is the day her current target, a business man who might have ties to the cartel she’s gaining information on, heads into that marketplace. 

She makes it theory yards before she can’t see anymore, before unshed tears cloud her vision and she loses sight of him. She ducks into a bathroom, washes her face and decides to head back to the hotel. She’s made it only a few steps, when arms wrap around her. 

She fights, manages an elbow to his gut, but when he cursed she goes limp, lets him pull her a few steps further away from the market and into an alley. 

“What the fuck, Stiles.” She says, once he finally lets her go, turning to face him. He’s cut his hair, still king but not as shaggy, and he’s shaved recently. He looks good, she thinks, and hates how much she wants to touch him. “I haven’t seen you in a year and this is how you decide to say hello?”

“No,” he says, cupping her face gently, “this is how I tell you I’m done.”

“What?” She inhales sharply, looking at hime with wide eyes. “What does that mean.”

“The Nogitsune are gone. I’m fine with that. I’m done with all of it.” He takes a deep breath and looks away from her. “If you- if you want me to come back with you, if you want to take me in, I’ll come. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“What?” She says again, trying to catch his eye, but he won’t look at her. She huffs and pulls away, pushing him back so she can think. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long-“ he starts after a few minutes, but she just pushes a finger to his lips, mind still racing a bit. 

She thinks about Scott and Malia, about Chris and Coach, about the only family she’s had for the past nine years. She thinks about them and then she thinks about Alison, about her dead best friend and about how no matter what Overwatch just keeps sending her places. First Paris, now back to Brussels. She thinks and thinks and finally, what must be at least fifteen minutes later she speaks. 

“What if I don’t want to go back.” He looks up at her sharply, an expression of wonder in his face. “What if, we just didn’t go back?”

“Do you want to see where I’ve been hiding?” He asks, and she grins. 

“Yeah, Stiles, I really really do.”

**Author's Note:**

> So if you made it to the end, first I apologise for any spelling errors, this was written on my phone. Second, what did you think? If I expanded on this and tried to turn into a real book with original characters and what not, would you read it or should I pursue the 30 other ideas I have? 😂 thanks for any feedback!


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